Particle Fever

Beneath and surrounded by pastoral farmland in Switzerland and France is the largest and most expensive science experiment the world has ever seen. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) run by CERN was created to prove the existence of the Higgs boson, the theoretical particle upon which the entire universe is built. Shot over a period of seven years, Particle Fever follows the physicists during the final construction and the initial test runs of the machine. Particle Fever is so effective at helping its layman audience understand its complex subject my very own liberal arts brain was fascinated by the arguments for and against supersymmetry and the multiverse, two theories that separate brilliant physicists into particular camps. Johns Hopkins physics professor and co-producer David Kaplan is adept at explaining to us what is usually displayed on blackboards in convoluted formulas as more of a philosophical problem. It helps that when they show someone scribbling formulas some noticeably enjoyable music takes over and we observe in montage. Physicists classify themselves either as theorists or experimentalists. Kaplan is a theorist; he dreams up new formulas and wild ideas about how the universe works and was created. The experimentalists are far more hands on. They build the gadgets and turn the screws to either prove or disprove the theorists. The film follows one particular experimental physicist involved with one of CERN’s experiments, Monica Dunford. Monica is a post-doc, lives and breathes the ideals of CERN, and the awesome possibilities that the LHC’s data will reveal to the world. Most of the world is involved as well. There are over 100 different nationalities represented at CERN and some mortal enemies, Iranians and Israelis, and Indians and Pakistanis. Also, why was the LHC constructed in Europe? There is an eye-rolling segment showing the U.S.’s construction of a similar machine in Texas whose funding was killed by Congress. The only morons in the entire film are the American politicians railing about how we should steal Europe’s technology for once. Kaplan addresses the issue of economics head on; there are no immediate financial benefits to this project. There is only the possibility of learning everything about how the entire universe works. It is comforting to know it is still possible on money obsessed Earth that some people have a broader vision and can see beyond a short-term return for shareholders. They are trying to see the edge of the universe and beyond. Helping us get a glimpse of that place, two-time Academy Award winner Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now (1979), The English Patient (1996)) edited Particle Fever where he moves it at a steady clip to keep us intrigued. Suspenseful music, clear and instructive animations, and likeable guides combine to make the audience truly care about whether or not they will find the Higgs boson. The only time the film slightly stutters is the two-year break it takes to fix the broken LHC where the action slows and sort of falls back on itself. Yet learning whether the universe is a mathematical accident, is just one of infinite universes, or is aligned in perfect symmetry is an answer you will want to wait for. If the gentlemen from TV’s The Big Band Theory made a documentary, I imagine Particle Fever would be the result.